


Poker Face

by orphan_account



Series: Episode Interludes [1]
Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Poker, Space Husbands, Strip Poker, season one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-19 21:39:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13132746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: “An earth game based around dishonesty,” Spock says mildly.  “It is unsurprising.”“It’s about the ability to fool your opponent.  The ability to remain unread.  I would think you’d be very good at this game, Spock.”Spock just quirks his eyebrow again, a thousand expressions in that one motion.  “And the object of the game?”“To win,” Jim says simply.





	Poker Face

**Author's Note:**

> What does a Jew like me do on Christmas? She sits and knits things and binges ToS, and then gets inspired to write Kirk/Spock interludes set off-screen. This one happens to be set post S1 E11 The Corbomite Manoeuvre. Inspired by Spock saying he'd like to learn poker.
> 
> Of course Jim doesn't teach him regular poker. He teaches him strip poker. With feelings and some angst.
> 
> This is not the first star trek fanfic I've ever written, but the first I've written in probably 10 years--and the first I've posted here.

The soft snick of the door sliding open sounds almost impossibly loud in the abandoned corridor. Jim feels a sort of thrill at the look on Spock’s face for a moment—perhaps unreadable to most, but for him, he knows. He sees the lift in his eyebrow, the microscopic lift at the right side of his mouth.

“Are you just going to stand there, or are you going to invite me in?” he says.

Spock’s eyebrow climbs just a little higher. “I was unaware you needed an invitation, Captain.”

Jim huffs, pushing past him, into the room. There’s a satisfying feeling when the door slides shut, and he’s surrounded by the calm, easy atmosphere of Spock’s personal chambers. He looks at the bed, still made, and then at the table nearby, and he sits, reaching into his pocket for the deck of cards.

Spock hasn’t moved from the door, but he watches with some interest as Jim takes them out of the pack and begins to shuffle them. “My father taught me this,” he says, mostly to fill the silence. “It’s an old earth game.”

“An old earth game,” Spock repeats, and he takes several steps over, though he doesn’t sit. Not yet. 

Jim feels the corners of his mouth curve up slightly, feels a thrill in his stomach as he shuffles the cards again. “Poker,” he clarifies.

“Ah.” There’s an almost perceptible smile on Spock’s face now, and he takes the chair back away from the table, then sits. “Poker.”

“There’s several ways to play. I’m not sure about all of them.” Jim begins to deal them. Texas Hold’em—the only one he can remember. “The game itself isn’t complicated—it’s more about bluffing.”

“An earth game based around dishonesty,” Spock says mildly. “It is unsurprising.”

“It’s about the ability to fool your opponent. The ability to remain unread. I would think you’d be very good at this game, Spock.”

Spock just quirks his eyebrow again, a thousand expressions in that one motion. “And the object of the game?”

“To win,” Jim says simply.

“Money.”

“You place a blind. Then you bet. You call your opponent’s bluff—or you don’t. You reveal your hand, and someone wins.”

“And someone loses,” Spock says, and Jim hears what’s in that. The carefully cultivated ability to hide emotions doesn’t mean they’re not there. And he knows that their experience had shaken most of them to the core. It’s not so often they get a countdown to face their own mortality. Even if Jim had been able to call the bluff.

Instead of answering, Jim reaches down and removes one of his socks, placing it at the centre of the table. When Spock merely stares, he says, “Yours next.”

“I may not understand all of earth’s customs, but I am quite certain in no time period has clothing been used as currency.”

“This isn’t currency, it’s a promise,” Jim says. “Strip poker.”

Spock blinks slowly, then with a deliberate motion, reaches down and sits back up straight with a single sock dangling from his long fingers. Black to Jim’s soft grey—a contrast which is intense as it sits between them.

Jim swallows against a dry throat, then quickly goes over the rules, the hands, the basics of bluffing. The risks, which he knows is pointless because Spock can calculate his odds well enough even without having touched a playing card before.

He picks up his cards, taps them on the table, clears his throat. He watches Spock, watches his blank face, giving nothing away. This is a game Jim can’t win—but he doesn’t care. However it ends, he’s already won.

He puts another sock on the table, and Spock watches him for a moment before reaching for the hem of his shirt, and letting it pile on the rest. Jim’s heart thuds, hard enough he can hear it in his ears.

“Are you certain?”

“Are you calling my bluff?” Spock responds.

Jim stares at his cards. A three of clubs, a four of diamonds. He removes his shirt, but adds nothing more to the pile.

The flop is dealt. His own, face up, the Queen of spades. Spock’s? A six of hearts.

Spock watches him, Jim feels a bead of sweat trickling down his temple. He pulls off his trousers. There’s barely room enough for the game now. He watches Spock.

Moments pass, that feel like eternity, and then Spock’s trousers meet Jim’s. And then his remaining sock.

They have only two more things to bet. Undershirts. Boxers.

The turn. Jim’s card, two of hearts. Spock’s seven of diamonds.

“Check,” Jim says, and his voice sounds deafening in the silence between them.

Spock removes his undershirt and places it gently on the pile. His eyes have not left Jim’s.

Jim’s shirt joins, and he considers—oh he considers. He has a losing hand but it hardly feels like it matters.

“Call?” Spock asks.

Jim just nods.

The river. An Ace of spades stares at him, while Spock’s eight of hearts nearly glows against the backdrop of the dark wood table. Jim’s fingers are shaking, though he’s unsure why. Their bodies are not unfamiliar to each other, nor is moments of stress, worry, near-death. But somehow it feels different.

“Alright,” Jim says, but before he can reveal his cards, Spock’s boxers land on the table, and he’s standing in front of Jim—his face unreadable, even to his partner. His cards lay face up. A four, and a five. 

Straight.

Jim has nothing. He has an ace. It means _nothing_.

That nothing, however, doesn’t matter as Spock draws him up. Two fingers raised, and Jim knows what he wants. What he needs. He joins his own there, feeling the pulse between them, the affection, the love, the fear. All of it.

Spock’s hands move to Jim’s shoulders, cradling the sides of his neck, their faces moving in, foreheads together, noses touching. “This is how you play poker?”

Jim laughs, unable to stop himself, even as his hands move to Spock’s bare waist, his fingers digging into warm flesh, feeling the pulse of Spock’s heart beneath them. “I would prefer if you didn’t play like this with the others, but I…I knew you would be good at this.”

“I suspect you did, which was why you are here, Jim.” There’s a smile on his face now, one any could read. It’s gone after a moment, but only because now... they’re kissing.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on tumblr at my multi-fandom/personal blog [angryspace-ravenclaw](https://angryspace-ravenclaw.tumblr.com)


End file.
